What you hear on the street.

I went to the cinema on Friday night, Paris 36, a pleasant enough film with a little darkness, a bit of Busby Berkley and a really sweet voice. I went for a bite and a little vino after with some of my film companions.

The conversations at tea were about the film and my trip and the future trips of some of the crowd. It was low-fi and pleasant and a nice night.

As I was ambling along home alone at the end, it was the conversations I was walking into that had me holding on.

I was crossing King St just past the station, waiting for the green man to come, when two young blokes, ordinary blokes in their early twenties. Nothing in their clothing that would make you notice them, ordinary builds, ordinary smells, ordinary sounds - though one was a little taller than the other. The conversation was a little animated, more from emphazing with passion, then beer lubrication which was a pleasant distraction and caught my attention.

As they past me, the smaller one was saying to the taller one, with a slightly regretful and whateverish tone, “… if I only knew she wanted me when she was here…..”

They were moving at pace so I couldn’t hear what he would of done, or if here meant she was travelling or just visiting, and though the sun had gone down, it was too light to give chase so I had to leave it.

The green man came so I trotted the roads. I rounded the corner and continued the journey home. About 300 metres on, a group of baby bogan scensters were approaching. There were four in the group, three boys and one bored and unattractive young girl. The boys were sweetly lubricated, yelling, laughing and bouncing off each other as sweetly lubricated 20 years olds have a way of doing at 10pm on a Friday night on their way out. The girl was loitering on the edges in a sullen way and I wondered if she was an old friend/sibling or housemate of one of the boys; she wasn’t a lover.

I moved to the edge happily to let this little mob past, as I was still grinning from the “..if I only knew…” conversation.

One of the louder baby bogan scensters stopped and earnestly said to his mates, in mock pissed seriousness, “..if Sally Cooper is there, you know I am going to have to leave straight away to take her home and fuck her hard….”

The other two grunted serious acknowledgments with “we understand” grins.

The girl continued to sulk.

I kept on walking, my face; you know at the end of The Omen, when Damien turns to the camera and gives this mean little glare straight down the barrel, he holds it for a bit, then his face muscles start to twitch slightly then slowly break into this beautiful big smile. That was my face.